Microsoft Surface Dial

Pros

Intuitive, clever design.
Streamlines tool selection and menu navigation.
Works with the Microsoft Surface Studio and other Windows 10 devices.

Cons

Slides down the screen when untouched.
Not many programs with advanced Dial integration yet.

Bottom Line

The Microsoft Surface Dial may not add essential functionality, but it's a satisfying and futuristic-feeling controller that amplifies the Surface Studio's features.

19 Apr 2017

The Microsoft Surface Dial ($99.99) is an optional tool to further aid creation on the innovative Surface Studio all-in-one desktop, though it works with other Windows 10 systems as well. When used with the Studio, you can place it directly on the screen or on your desk to bring up a digital menu, turning and pressing through a radial UI on the fly to select tools, change colors, and more, depending on the program. While not essential, it adds value by streamlining the experience and providing quicker access to your tools and options. It's also satisfying and fun to use. While $100 isn't cheap, it's a small slice of the overall investment into a Studio that further enhances the desktop's strong points.

Design

The aptly named Dial is a small, silver disc with a black base, measuring 1.33 inches tall and 2.32 inches in diameter. The base is rubberized to grip the screen (more on that later), while the main silver portion that you spin and press is made of aluminum. It's powered by two AAA batteries, and there are no ports of any kind on for charging or connectivity. Despite the simplicity, it feels high quality because of the material and heft—it weighs 145 grams (about 5.1 ounces) with batteries.

The bottom of the base is attached magnetically, and pulls away easily to reveal the battery compartment as well as the sync button. The Dial connects via Bluetooth, so syncing it to your computer should be a familiar concept. If you navigate to the list of available Bluetooth devices on your PC and hold down the Dial's sync button for five seconds, it should show up on the list. From there, you can pair it with your computer, and it will always be at the ready, waiting for input. Microsoft lists the range as two meters (about 6.5 feet), and it still worked for me at about 10 feet, but dropped out after that (not that you'll likely use it at that distance).

Battery life is rated at roughly a year, based on four hours of use per day. That will vary depending on usage, but you should expect to have to replace the batteries very infrequently.

The Dial can be used either on your desk surface or directly on the Studio's screen, to largely the same effect. You can press and hold the Dial to bring up a radial menu with several options, twist it to scroll between them, and press it in once to select. It has some very satisfying haptic feedback when you turn it and scroll through menus, with a slight vibration when you make a selection. It not only works with the Microsoft Surface Studio and Surface Pro tablets, but with any Windows 10 device. However, placing the Dial on the screen only works with the Surface Studio, so you'll have to settle for controlling the menus from your desk with other computers. The functionality is mostly the same in terms of what's available on the menu, it's just not as convenient or intuitive as using the Dial on the screen.

Features

The options that actually appear on the digital menu depend on where you're using the Dial: On the desktop, web browser, and some more basic Windows programs, the options are universal tools like volume, brightness, zoom, scroll, and undo. If you're in a program designed to work with the Dial (some examples are below, but it's still early days for there to be too many of these yet), the menu is filled with more contextual, program-specific tools. Also, if you're using the Dial on a system without the Windows 10 Creators Update, desktop and basic options are limited to volume and brightness. The update is free and available now, though, and if you're interested in the Dial, you likely want the Creators Update features, too.

If you're using the Dial directly on the Studio's screen, the menu appears around the Dial itself, and it feels cool and futuristic to have this digital UI pop up around your analog input. If you're just pressing down on your desk, the menu pops up in the last place you used the Dial on the screen, and there's simply a black footprint where the Dial would be. The menu is opaque, so it will block out whatever it's over indefinitely until you make a selection and clear it. Since it supplements your mouse or stylus while designing or drawing, it will likely be off to either side of the screen rather than over the center and blocking any work. And with the Studio's 28-inch screen, there's plenty of room to keep it out of the way.

The rubberized grip on the bottom does a decent job of holding on to the Microsoft Studio's screen, but if you take your hand away from it for more than a few seconds, the Dial begins to slowly slide downward. This happens even when the Studio is at its most horizontal angle, so there's little you can do to mitigate the issue. While it's true that your hand will most likely be on or hovering next to the Dial while you draw and switch between tools, I found it natural to not constantly touch it, but keep my hand nearby, coming back when I needed to change an option. Even in that time frame the Dial will begin sliding away, potentially off your screen and onto the floor. It's not a deal breaker, and you can adapt and keep your hand on it or always just place it on your desk between uses, but I feel confident this isn't quite what Microsoft intended.

Dialed In

So the Dial certainly feels cool to use, but does it add value and efficiency for the extra $100? It's certainly intuitive, taking just minutes to understand, and I found myself reaching for it for quick tasks like changing brightness or zooming in, even when just using the Studio as an upright desktop. Using it directly on the display works best in conjunction with the Studio's stylus—drawing with your dominant hand and keeping the other one near the Dial to flip between tools and options.

Software with Dial integration is starting to trickle in, and I tested some to give me an idea of what it can add to creation. A simpler program like Paint, a browser like Microsoft Edge, and even Adobe programs (though I expect this to change going forward) only give you the basic options like undo and zoom, which won't help your creation process much.

There are already genuinely useful integrations in apps like Djay Pro and Sketchable, which make the Dial a natural part of the process. In Djay, you can use the Dial to cross-fade, seek along a track, scratch, apply a filter, and more, all by making a selection and turning the Dial to increase, decrease, or scroll, depending on which tool you have selected. There's definitely a learning curve for doing this seamlessly and getting to a point where you don't need long pauses to look at the menu and navigate, but it does prevent you from clicking around with a mouse or moving your hand all over the screen to select options.

Djay Pro also includes zone awareness, meaning the Dial changes function based on where you place it on the screen. By default it might be set to cross-fade, but place it on one of the rotating records representing one of your tracks, and it becomes a scratcher. Similarly, placing it on a song's scrolling timeline makes it seek, so you can scrub along to a specific part. All of this feels better than doing it with your fingers, and once you learn the menus, it's snappier than clicking through with a mouse or tapping with a stylus.

Sketchable is made similarly easier to navigate, with many of the tools you switch between frequently available on the Dial's menu. By default, pressing and holding the Dial in this program pulls up two color spectrums, brush options, undo, and zoom. The most eye-catching involces color wheels that come up when you choose HSB or RGB. These are several concentric rings that circle the Dial (or the Dial's digital footprint if you're using it from your desk), with different hues and colors that fade into one another. You can press once to switch between the rings, jumping between colors and color warmth families, and rotate the Dial to fine-tune shades. It's intuitive, faster than jumping away from your art and into a separate color-selection menu, and fun to use.

Outside of these programs, there are simpler uses in software like Spotify (where you can scroll your track list, change volume, skip songs, and pause) and Groove Music (you can scroll tracks, change volume, scrub through a song). There's even a Dial-specific game, PewPew Shooter. This was developed in a couple days by Microsoft employees in a hackathon, so it's not exactly deep, and the controls are awkward. But keep an eye out for more Dial-specific programs going forward, though, especially with the release of Creators Update.

Creation, With a Twist

Djay Pro and Sketchable are just two examples of software integration, but they work as solid proofs of concept as to how the Microsoft Surface Dial can make digital creation more fluid. The Dial is within reach at all times, prevents you from going back to your mouse, and has a satisfying tactile element to it. While $100 isn't cheap, if you're already all-in on the expensive Surface Studio, or want to use the Dial off-screen with another Windows 10 computer, it's a very small fraction of that investment.

There isn't a lot of software with Dial integration right now, but the foundation and potential are there, with a few choice options to start. The Dial isn't essential, but it has enough genuine use that I think it adds value to the Surface Studio experience. I would recommend picking one up with your desktop, especially if it's being provided by your employer or you can deduct the cost as a business expense.

About the Author

Matthew Buzzi is a junior analyst on the Hardware team at PCMag. Matthew graduated from Iona College with a degree in Mass Communications/Journalism. He interned for a college semester at Kotaku, writing about gaming. He has written about technology and video game news, as well as hardware and gaming reviews. In his free time, he likes to go out with friends, watch and discuss sports, play video games, read too much Twitter, and obsessively manage any fantasy sports leagues he's involved in. See Full Bio